Injong Rhee, one of the key figures behind Samsung products like KNOX, Samsung Pay, and Bixby, is now working with Google. Even though executive shifts happen regularly at big companies, this one certainly feels a bit different, since Rhee was such an influential figure at a company known for hardware that happened to make several successful software pushes with him at the helm.

Rhee will apparently head to Google as an entrepreneur-in-residence, which will mean a focus on IoT projects,...